Please, please click on the link over on the right to 'Hey Larry Hughes Please Stop Taking So Many Bad Shots'. The author has posted his final, well, post, and it's great. The highlight? A photo of Brian Fantana with the caption: "Larry Hughes' jumpshot; 33% of the time, it works every time."

There is a good chance that I'll print that out and hang it in my bedroom.

This site is called Rational Sports, but allow me a moment of irrational exuberance. The Cavs just pulled off a mega trade with the Bulls and Sonics, and the trade is so far in the Cavs' favor that I wet myself when I heard the news.

Here are the players involved, along with their WP48 production through the first half of the season:

Cavs get:
Ben Wallace .162
Wally Szczerbiak .055
Delonte West .004
Joe Smith .065

Bulls get:
Larry Hughes (!!!) -.080
Drew Gooden .074
Cedric Simmons -.125
Shannon Brown -.186

Sonics get:
Ira Newble .097
Donyell Marshall -.214
Adrian Griffin .040

Now, on the surface this doesn't look like such a huge trade for the Cavs. However, there is a chance that the Cavs pulled off this deal at critical 'buy low' times for many of the players involved. Ben Wallace has historically posted a WP48 in excess of .300. In other words, he has been stellar. It's true that he's old now, but it's also true that he has been unhappy in Chicago. Still, he has been playing twice as well as Gooden, who also has traditionally been a much better player, in the .180 range. But I'm happy to take a player whose play, when they don't live up to expectations, equals that of a player when he does live up to expectations.

Both West and Szczerbiak have been slightly above average in the past as well. This year both have seen very inconsistent minutes, and it has been shown that a reduction in minutes does has a negative impact on a player's production. It is likely that West and Wally will become the starting PG and SG for the Cavs, or, if Boobie Gibson starts, one of them will be the sixth man. The increase in minutes should bode well for their play.

Last, but certainly not least, the Cavs have gotten rid of Larry Hughes. Ah, Larry. I cannot overemphasize how important this is to the Cavs. Even if Wally and West do not improve at all, the loss of Hughes, whose WP48 is in the negative range, means a dramatic increase in production for the Cavs. Let's put it this way: I, a rational sports fan, jumped up from my computer and ran and talked excitedly to a near-stranger at my workplace (who I knew was a basketball fan) after hearing about the trade. I am very sad, however, that the fantastic heylarryhughespleasestoptakingsomanybadshots.com may be dead. There really is no replacement for a site like that in one's daily web routine.

All in all, there is no doubt - none - that this is a very beneficial trade for the Cavs. The only real assets they gave up were Gooden (having a terrible year so far) and Newble, who sees very limited minutes because of the NBA's scoring bias.

I might purchase an NBA league pass for the rest of this year now. Unbelievable.

I have been very busy at work lately, that is why there haven't been many posts lately. Well, that and because I am the only person who reads this thing.

One NBA player lords over LeBron James.

Carmelo Anthony rules Cleveland's hoops King.

"I know he hates losing to me," Anthony said with a laugh.

This is how the AP writeup of last night's Cavs-Nuggets game began. But let's see who should be laughing. True, the Nuggets destroyed the Cavs last night. It was ugly. But the Cavs were without many of their main rotation players: Gooden, Gibson and Varejao. The Nuggets were pretty much at full strength.

I find it hard to believe that some people still consider Carmelo a better player than LeBron, but apparently they're out there. So I calculated the WP48 (wins per 48 minutes) of each player (see the Wages of Wins link to the right if you don't know what this means).

LeBron: .166
Carmelo: .464

And what we find is that in this case, the AP writer is correct (didn't see that one coming, did you?). LeBron played a horrible game, highlighted by his 5 turnovers. Looks like he shouldn't have been the one to sit alone at the end of the bench in the 4th quarter.

Of course, this is just one game. So before we jump to conclusions here is each player's WP48 score after the first 41 games of the season:

LeBron: .331
Carmelo: .101

These numbers are representative of each player's entire career. LeBron has been a far more productive player than Carmelo. It's really not even close.

For fun, here is Darko's WP48 this season:

Darko: -.075

Yes, that's a minus sign.

Let's get one thing straight - Steve Kerr sure seems like a good guy. Great player, good commentator, apparently horrid GM. According to ESPN, Kerr is on the verge of trading Shawn Marion for Shaq.

I use the metrics devised by Dave Berri (the Wages of Wins) to judge players on this site, but I don't care what you choose to use - there is no way to justify this trade statistically. Shaq is no longer the player he once was by any measure, while Marion is an absolute freak.

WP48 for each (through 41 games):

Shaq: .102 (.100 is an average player)
Marion .314

Steve Kerr was given one of the top 5 franchises in the league, easy, and within one year he is going to turn them into a top 15 team.

Mark my words - if this trade goes through Phoenix is officially out of the race. They're done. Stoudamire is the third banana to Nash and Marion, but once again the NBA's scoring bias has resulted in a terrible, terrible decision. Sorry Phoenix.

Today's post is a bit personal. Josh Smith blew up yesterday and posted a very fantasy friendly line of 19 points (on 53.8% shooting), 6 reb, 9 ast, 4 stl, 5 turnovers and 9 (!) blocks. I say this post is personal because Smith is on the team of my opponent this week, and those 9 blocks really, really suck.

So the AP write up names Smith as the catalyst for the Hawks' defeat of the 76ers. But how does Win Score view this performance?

Smith shot efficiently, which is something he tends to have trouble with. His possession stats look utterly fantastic as well, until you consider the five turnovers. Those turnovers cancel out his four steals, plus a couple of those blocks. Still, though, 7 blocks and 6 rebounds result in favorable net possession score.

What about his teammates, though? Specifically, what about the 'other Josh' - a player who plays a similar position to Smith but who comes off the bench (yet he does get big minutes).

Josh Childress shot an amazing 9-11 from the field for 21 highly efficient points. His possession stats were much less astounding than Smith's, but he pulled down the same number of rebounds in 5 fewer minutes and only committed one turnover. This certainly mitigates the discrepancy.

Was Childress' amazing shooting efficiency enough to compensate for his worse (but still good) possession stats and result in him being the more productive Josh per minute in last night's game?

The answer is no, but barely. Here are their WP48:

Josh Smith: .507
Josh Childress: .459

So while Smith's gaudy stats compelled the AP to fixate on his play, Childress quietly put together an almost-as-fantastic night in 35 minutes off the bench.

(Note: Childress has consistently been the more productive of the two Josh's over the course of their careers).

The moral of this story? Well, usually the moral of my stories is that scoring is overvalued. In this case, though, the top scorer wasn't the top story, and in fact Smith was the most productive player on the Hawks last night. But Childress wasn't far behind at all. So the moral is that the relative values of each stat are incredibly important (blocks and steals always appear next to each other in the box score, but steals are actually twice as valuable).

Oh, and just as scoring is overvalued, turnovers are undervalued. Big time.

Seriously? So the Grizzlies traded Pau Gasol, a proven productive NBA player, to the Lakers for... what, exactly? There are no guarantees, just four #1 picks, essentially. That's it. Chris Wallace, what were you thinking? Those first rounders are going to be LATE first rounders. So you'll have cap space for free agents too, but who exactly are you gunning for now? Who wants to play for the Grizzlies? Without Pau's production you're going to be really, really terrible for a few years, if not butt-naked last. WTF?

I know this site is called Rational Sports, but perhaps I should have included the disclaimer "rationality not guaranteed when discussing teams I love or hate". I hate the Lakers. Hate them. And now they have, when healthy, perhaps the most productive team in the NBA.

Today we're going to do a little exercise. Consider the following numbers:

6.6
2.1
21.6
12.2
13.6

These are how many possessions, per 48 minutes, five different players in the NBA have generated this year. Remember, each possession generated gives his team an opportunity to score. Who would you rather have on your team?

I'll tell you this - the first two players are a small forward and point guard, respectively. The last three are all centers.

(By the way, this number is very simple to calculate. Rebounds + Steals + 1/2 Blocks - Turnovers. (The 1/2 blocks calculation has been documented at the Wages of Wins. It makes sense since a blocked shot does not always result in a possession for the defending team).)

I'm not going to tell you the first two players. I'll just say they're on the same team as the third player: Marcus Camby.

On his own, all by himself, Camby has generated 21+ possessions for the Nuggets per 48 minutes this season.

The Nuggets have shot 45% for the year so far. 27% of their shots have been threes. This means the Nuggets score 21.5 points per 48 minutes as a direct result of Camby's ability to rebound, gets steals and blocks, and not turn the ball over.

Let me state that again: Camby's Net Possessions alone result in 21.5 points per 48 minutes for the Nuggets.

The fourth player on the list is Chris Wilcox. He is a PF/C for the Sonics, and is a very, very average player. Despite playing virtually the same position as Camby he generates a little more than HALF of the possessions Camby generates, per 48.

The fifth player is interesting because he will be playing in the All-Star game. He is a center. Strangely, though, he doesn't appear to be much more valuable than Wilcox in terms of possessions.

One thing worth mentioning is that this person plays significantly more minutes than Wilcox does, so his per GAME possession stats are much better than Wilcox's. This is an easy mistake to make because of the way average stats are usually quoted in sports literature. Per MINUTE numbers put all players on an even footing. (Let's call this the Mikki Moore Corollary).

As you might have guessed, this fifth player scores a lot of points. And I must admit he does it very, very efficiently. In fact he scores much more efficiently than Camby.

However, Camby's extraordinary advantage in Net Possessions makes him TWICE as productive as Amare Stoudamire when all stats are taken into consideration via Win Score.

This is why I agree with Sir Charles (which doesn't often happen). Camby not making the All-Star game is disturbing. No other way to put it.

http://www.wagesofwins.com/AllPlayersMid0708.html

Also, Joe Johnson is getting the credit Al Horford deserves.